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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29692293">Basking</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/writetofillthespace/pseuds/writetofillthespace'>writetofillthespace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Women's Soccer RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, just pure fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:22:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29692293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/writetofillthespace/pseuds/writetofillthespace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She comes home after winning the She Believes Cup.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tobin Heath/Christen Press</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>213</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Basking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just some fluff for all of those people that are missing Tobin these days. Me too.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You hear the grumble of the elevator.</p><p> </p><p>Your heart jumps for just a second. It’s almost imperceptible.</p><p> </p><p>You flip your phone over. <em>Maybe, </em>you think.</p><p> </p><p>So you wait for the ding. You wait as the grumbling gets louder. But there’s no ding.</p><p> </p><p>You flip your phone back over, maybe a little more forcefully than an hour ago, and you get back to your emails.</p><p> </p><p>It’s been the same routine for the past two hours: type, type, type, hear the grumble, check the time, and wait for the elevator to ding. Two hours ago, you kept typing out your emails while you waited for the ding, knowing that it wasn’t time yet. But an hour ago, you switched off the Premier League game that you had on for background noise so you could hear the elevator better. Half an hour ago, <em>it’s not time yet</em> turned into <em>maybe it’s time</em>. Ten minutes ago, you moved across the room from one couch to the other so you could be 10 feet closer to the door to hear the ding when it came. Five minutes ago, <em>maybe it’s time </em>turned into <em>it has to be time by now</em>.</p><p> </p><p>There it is again: the grumble.</p><p> </p><p>Heart: jump.</p><p> </p><p>Phone: flip.</p><p> </p><p>You take a breath, centering. You lift your eyes back to your computer and you’re off again. Skimming and typing and reading full sentences when necessary (it’s rarely necessary).</p><p> </p><p>…<em>C-a-n  I  g-e-t  t-h-e  s-w-a-t-c-h-e-s  b-y  n-e-x-</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Ding!</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It’s muffled, but it was a ding! Your eyes fly to the door. <em>Was it on this floor or downstairs? </em>you wonder to yourself.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good – Hey dad? I’m just getting back to the apartment, can I call you back later?…Yeah…Yeah…Okay…Yeah, love you, too…Okay I’ll let her know…Bye, dad.”</p><p> </p><p>The voice floats around the hallways and through the walls and under the door and straight into your blood, pumping through your veins. You hop up and walk to the door, strides as wide as your boot will allow. You reach for the handle and swing the door open.</p><p> </p><p>You’re met with wide eyes and a soft smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi” – and the sound of it floods your lungs with air.</p><p> </p><p>She lets go of the handle of her suitcase and takes the final step to you, and she circles you in her arms, gently yet firmly as only she can do. You stay there, running your hands down her ponytail, down her shoulders, up and down her arms, and settle in the bend of her back, remembering, recognizing, basking.</p><p> </p><p>You lean back, just far enough to see her eyes find your soul through yours.</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, I missed you,” you breath out. “Wow.”</p><p> </p><p>Your hand floats up to her cheek, and a thumb grazes across her cheekbone, and her lips lean towards yours. It’s gentle yet firm as only she knows how to do. It’s chaste in its form but passionate in all the things it says. <em>I really missed you, </em>you think into her lips.</p><p> </p><p>She tilts back again to see your face, one she hadn’t seen in nearly two weeks. Your hand slips to the back of her neck where it rests, basking.</p><p> </p><p>When you feel your soul is full of visions of her bright eyes once again, you step back. You reach for her suitcase with one hand while the other slips into hers. You guide her to the stool next to the kitchen island and continue onto the bedroom where you drop off her suitcase.</p><p> </p><p>You walk right back to her, strides still wide, and kiss her again. Firm but gentle, just as you’d learned from her. Your soul needed replenishing from that time it took to get from the island to the bedroom and back, so you hold her face in your hands and bask. Bask in the warmth of her skin and the fondness in her eyes and the love on her lips and the marks of the Florida sun on her freckled nose. You bask, and you think that maybe she does the same. And when your soul is full again, for now, you step back, but not too far.</p><p> </p><p>“You hungry? I haven’t made lunch yet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I’d love some lunch. Didn’t eat too much on the flight.”<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>“Great, let’s do it.”</p><p> </p><p>You drop your hands from her face, take a quick breath, and step around the island to get to work.</p><p> </p><p>--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--</p><p> </p><p>When stomachs are full and eyes have been rested, you bask again. This time, in the way her fingers twitch in her sleep where they lay on your sternum. You move your hand from behind your head and drop it down to meet the other on her back. You graze it over her sweatshirt, lifting your head to place a kiss on the top of hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, baby, wake up.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes flutter open, and her head lifts from your chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, there are those pretty eyes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mmmm,” she hums lifting her upper body slightly to get herself out of the nap haze.</p><p> </p><p>You mimic her movement and sit up, the couch shifting beneath you as your weight redistributes.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi, beautiful.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hi,” she smiles, shy in the power of your gaze.</p><p> </p><p>You reach for her hand that has fallen to her lap and stroke the back of it with your thumb.</p><p> </p><p>“That was a good nap,” she mumbles, and you smile in return, happy to have provided the warmth that you know gives her the best sleep. “Wow, it feels good to be back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah? How was it?”</p><p> </p><p>“It was great. It just felt great.” She pauses a moment, looking down at your intertwined hands. “It really felt great.”</p><p> </p><p>“You played great,” you emphasize. “I mean, you were just <em>on it</em>.” You stop there because that’s about as much shop as you two talk. “I am <em>so</em> proud of you,” you add because she has to know. You know she knows, but you have to make sure she knows every time.</p><p> </p><p>“It really felt good. I felt like I was making progress and doing the things Vlatko is trying to implement and producing the way they want me to. And it was <em>fun,</em> you know? It was <em>so fun</em>.” She looks down again and shakes her head, and you look at her curiously because you don’t know what she’s thinking. “Being here is great, but every time I’m there, I remember why I love this game, and that’s just so exhilarating every time.”</p><p> </p><p>You look into her eyes and fill your soul up with the joy that’s floating in them. And it makes you smile. It makes you smile with your eyes crinkled and your heart warm because her joy makes you happy.</p><p> </p><p>After a moment, you both sink into the back of the couch, still facing each other. She looks at your intertwined hands again and lifts yours up in both of hers. Her fingers dance around your ring, tracing it, maneuvering it around your finger.</p><p> </p><p>“They really missed you, you know.” She looks up at your eyes again. “They told me to tell you that they missed you. Rose and Pinoe and Alex and Kel and Carli – all of them. Ali and Ash, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah? How was the baby?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s <em>amazing,</em> Tobin!” she gloats as a smile jumps onto her lips. “She’s just so precious, you know? So <em>small</em>. So <em>beautiful</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>She continues to trace your ring, and you lean your head on your arm that’s resting on the top of the couch.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah?” you whisper, mesmerized by her glow. Basking.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” she breathes out.</p><p> </p><p>And you don’t have to say it because you’ve said it before, and even if you hadn’t, she would know. But you say it anyway because communication is your thing. Well, it didn’t used to be, but it is now. It has been ever since she made it clear years ago that she would only do this if you two could communicate. You two sat on the edge of your double-sized hotel bed, facing each other as she explained this: You work a job together, but you don’t <em>just</em> work together. You go through your most intense highs and your deepest lows together. Not only do you work together, but your success, your high-pressure-high-value success, is dependent on you two working seamlessly together. So you both <em>have </em>to communicate, she explained, if this thing between you two was going to work. And later that night, when she had left and Kelley snored in the bed next to yours, you resolved that you <em>needed </em>it to work. Desperately.</p><p> </p><p>So you communicated. You communicated until it became habit; until you couldn’t <em>not </em>communicate. You told her everything over the years. No thought was kept away from her. No fear was harbored. No love was withheld. No exhaustion left unexpressed. No awe hidden. You told her everything, and she did the same in return. That’s how you two work.</p><p> </p><p>So you say it. “I want that with you.” You grab both her hands in yours, just to make sure she’s really paying attention. “I really want that with you.”</p><p> </p><p>She smiles, close mouthed like she’s trying to keep the love from overwhelming her. But her lips part and she smiles that big smile anyways, letting the love overwhelm every cell in her body, basking.</p><p> </p><p>She lifts your hands to her lips and presses love into your palms.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, me too,” she whispers into them like a prayer. She lifts her eyes to yours and keeps them there until she’s sure you felt the force of the love she placed in your hands. “I want it all with you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was just something that popped into my head! I don't write a whole lot of fanfic, but let me know if there is something in particular you'd like to read!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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